


The Potluck

by Zukohere



Category: Naruto
Genre: Christmas Party, Crack, Gen, New Year's Eve, hinted kisame/itachi, holiday fic, kinda written from kisame's pov, the akatsuki are chaotic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22062778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zukohere/pseuds/Zukohere
Summary: Konan decides to invite the Akatsuki members to a holiday potluck on New Year's Eve. As always, it doesn't go exactly as planned.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	The Potluck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regicides](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regicides/gifts).



> This ended up being so much longer than I expected. I intended to make this a Christmas potluck but I didn't make it in time, so here I am, 15 mins before midnight on new year's eve, rushing to post this before the holidays actually end lmao  
> Happy New Year everyone!!

It was a snowy winter afternoon without wind. Sparkly snowflakes softly fell to the ground and the sun was already low on the horizon. All across the five countries, people were gathering with their loved ones to celebrate the most festive holiday of the year, because indeed, it was New Years’ Eve.

Near the border between the Rain country and the Fire Country, miles past the last village, two cloaked figures were walking across a large frozen river. The ice was thin, and setting foot on it would be unimaginable for anyone who wasn’t a ninja. But the two people wearing black and red cloaks weren’t just ordinary ninjas either. Each of them was holding a rectangular bundle of cloth, one of which was carrying a delicious smell all around the surrounding mountains. 

“They really chose a dangerous place, this year. Right, Itachi-san?” the larger man spoke.

“Hn.”

Itachi barely sparred his partner a glance. Instead, his eyes were fixated on the paper tag stuck to the large boulder stuck on the mountain side in front of them. A couple more steps, and they would be in range to activate the hidden jutsu.

“Even if this is a remote location, they could have gone for something that’s not so close to the border.”

“That’s far enough, Kisame.”

At his command, they both stopped. Itachi handed his bag to Kisame and concentred his chakra in his hands. He performed a few quick handsigns, stuck his hands to the rock wall, and just like that, the barrier disappeared. They stepped inside the unwelcoming darkness of the new hideout, and didn’t look back to see the boulder reappearing behind their backs.

Their packages in hand, they advanced down the corridor towards the dim light of what appeared to be the main room.

“It smells…”, started Kisame.

“Delicious”, he wanted to say, but didn’t dare. Because from what he knew about Konan and Leader, this could be a wonderful home-cooked meal as much as it could be a dismembered enemy that’d been burned to a crisp. And Kisame didn’t know if he wanted to take his chances.

As they walked closer, they discovered that the source of the light was from a large metal chandelier hanging from the highest roof Kisame had ever seen. Because of course, their leader must have somehow found a way to carve a lair inside an actual mountain. Why was he even impressed anymore?

The walls of the circular main room were decorated with holly wreaths and garlands of ruby and gold. In the middle stood a large round table covered with a beautifully embroidered red tablecloth. Nine set of cutlery had been carefully disposed around the table. Glass jar candles and fir branches served as decorations, along with an intricate origami centerpiece representing…a bird of some sort, he guessed. To Kisame, Konan’s art was mostly mysterious and incomprehensible.

“Ah, Itachi, Kisame,” said the woman in question.

She had just waltzed in from the adjacent room, which, judging by her Akatsuki apron (Kisame didn’t know they made aprons now), was the kitchen. She carried with her a large mixing bowl, along with the scents of spices and vinegar. Maybe they weren’t cooking an enemy after all.

“You are the first ones to arrive,” she stated as she set the bowl on the table.

It was a colorful quinoa salad. Kisame’s mouth watered at the sight: it looked absolutely magnificent. Konan caught his gaze and answered his silent question.

“It’s quinoa with citrus slices, cranberries and mint leaves.”

Kisame gave her a smile. “It looks delicious, Konan-san.”

“Hello, Konan,” Itachi greeted her. “We brought lasagna.”

He unwrapped his bundle of cloth to reveal a glass plate containing the lasagna they’d spent so long working on. Itachi had even insisted they get the expensive new cooking book from the bookstore because there was a new (and complicated) recipe he wanted to try out. Konan took the container from his hands and set it on display on the table. She then turned towards Kisame.

“And this?” she inquired, staring at the box wrapped in blue fabric that he was holding.

“This,” Kisame grinned, “is a thank you gift from us to you and Leader. For hosting us.”

She eyed him warily. She probably wasn’t used to gratitude coming from notorious criminals.

“Itachi insisted we get it,” he added as he handed her the small package.

She took it and untied the know with nimble fingers. 

“It’s a box of chocolates,” she realized.

Her expression softened. Itachi had clearly been right about the chocolates. She didn’t say thank you or acknowledge the gift in any form other than with a slight nod. There was a moment of awkward silence. Kisame was used to awkward pauses by now, being Itachi’s partner and all, but Konan clearly wasn’t. She looked around and jumped on an occasion to change the subject.

“What do you think? About the decorations, I mean.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Itachi, as always, wasn’t exactly keen on words. Fortunately, Kisame was there to palliate to his lack of expressive vocabulary.

“As usual, you’ve outdone yourself, Konan-san. You’ve made this piece of rock look like the inside of a castle.”

Konan gave a small, beautiful smile. He was about to add something just to keep her smiling like that, but they were suddenly interrupted by a loud thud coming from the next room. When they heard a muffled growl, Konan frowned.

“I need to get back to the kitchen. Make yourselves comfortable, but don’t start eating until everyone’s here. Until then, enjoy the appetizers,” she said, gesturing to the plates of fruits and vegetables. “The others should be arriving soon.”

Without another word, she left as quickly as she’d come, this time with the chocolate box in hands. Kisame sighed and let himself drop on the nearest chair. Itachi did the same, but with more grace. They both glanced over at the appetizers: plates of fruits and cheese blocks, and raw vegetables with what was probably, knowing Konan, a homemade dip. Kisame had skipped lunch in order to stuff himself with Konan’s delicious cooking, and maybe the others’ as well, if they brought anything edible…but he doubted they would. With the added smell emanating from the kitchen, his stomach started growling furiously. Might as well start eating now and make the pleasure last, he thought.

“Well, I’m digging in,” he announced as he reached out to dip a carrot stick into the creamy mixture.

Itachi groaned his traditional “Hm” for an answer, but he didn’t make a move towards the food. Instead, he poured himself a glass of water from the nearby jar.

“Do you think anyone will come at all?” Kisame asked between two bites.

He’d been right. It was homemade dip, and it was delicious.

“Who knows,” replied Itachi, after a moment of consideration. “It is unusual for Leader to organize such a…gathering.”

Kisame shrugged. “It’s just a potluck. Which is awesome, because we get to eat Konan’s cooking.”

“And Leader’s, apparently.”

Kisame cast a glare of disbelief at the arched doorway leading to the kitchen. He was still hesitant to believe that the groan they’d heard earlier had been from their leader. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t imagine that he’d be _cooking_ for them.

“Are you sure? That could’ve been someone else. Like Zetsu.”

“It wasn’t me.”

He nearly jumped out of his chair at the sound of Zetsu’s voice. The black-and-white plant man had just materialized out of floor next to them. Kisame hated when he did this.

“You brought lasagna,” he stated, looking over at their plate. “ _How unoriginal_ ,” he added, this time in a deeper, darker tone.

“If you’re so original then, care to tell us what you brought?”

Complying to Itachi’s request, Zetsu took out from god-knows-where his own container. He lifted the lid to reveal…plain brownies. Kisame sneered.

“Are you kidding? You got brownies and you think that our lasagna isn’t good enough?”

“Any dessert is better than lasagna,” he frowned, before his darker half added “ _and these aren’t just ordinary brownies either_.”

They didn’t say anything to that, because they both knew exactly what he must have put in the brownies. Kisame rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. Meanwhile, Zetsu put his brownies on display as far away from their lasagna as possible. Mere seconds later, a loud clatter of metallic noises followed by a series of curse words reached their ears. They all looked towards the source of the ruckus (the kitchen, of course), but they didn’t make any move to get up.

“Do you think Leader is okay?” asked Zetsu.

“Leader is in there for real?” Kisame exclaimed.

“Of course. He is useless in a kitchen, so Konan is helping him cook his meal. She would never let him pass on bringing something to the potluck she organized.”

“I thought this was Leader’s idea?”

Zetsu looked at him gravely and said very seriously:

“It’s _never_ Leader’s idea.”

To that, Itachi nodded solemnly. Kisame opened his mouth to retort, but before he could do so, he was interrupted by what sounded suspiciously like an explosion. And this time, it wasn’t coming from the kitchen. They didn’t have to wait long until two figures emerged from the corridor: a redhead with soulless eyes and his companion with his long blonde hair held high up on his head in a ponytail. They were both wearing cheesy Christmas sweaters and they were currently busy arguing loudly.

“-could’ve alerted the whole country with your ineffective, meaningless explosions that you call art,” the red-haired ninja was saying.

“That WAS art, danna! You just can’t grasp the complex beauty of expl-…”

The blonde man was gesticulating angrily with one hand, balancing a round container in the other.

“There was a _tag_ on the door, Deidara. _That_ ’s how we’re supposed to get in.”

In the mist of their verbal joust, Itachi’s voice was drowned when he asked “What are you two wearing?” Indeed, Kisame was wondering the same damn thing.

“Artists must always seek to take the road not taken!” Deidara retorted, oblivious. “What’s the point of doing the same as everyone else when you could be taking art to new heights, yeah?”

“You _blew the door off_! That’s not-”

They were brutally cut off when a kitchen knife as long as a man’s arm grazed their faces and lodged itself on the wall behind them. They both stopped in their tracks and stared at the machete-like kitchen tool, before turning to see…

“Leader!”, exclaimed Deidara, his face suddenly turning very pale.

Kisame would’ve laughed at their misfortune, but he was too busy taking in the peculiar sight in front of him. Their leader stood with his head high, a commendable fact since he was wearing the cursed Akatsuki apron and covered head-to-toe in flour. Instead of his ninja headband, he was sporting a bright red Santa hat. The pompom currently fell right between his eyes, diminishing the credibility of his murderous purple stare.

He lowered the arm he’d used to throw the knife. “You blew the door off.”

It was more of a (menacing) statement than a question, which was telling of how angry he was.

“Leader, I…uh…yeah…”

Deidara slowly backed away from the table on which he had just deposited his plate. He raised his hands in surrender, smiling nervously.

“Look, it was…”

But eader didn’t let him finish. He held out his palm, preparing his trademark jutsu.

“You will know pain.”

Sasori sneered smugly. Deidara looked ready to cry.

“Wait!” he cried. “I brought risotto!”

Whatever lever he’d just used, it had worked. The Shinra Tensei never came. Instead, a long silence stretched between the pair, and Leader finally lowered his hand.

“…What kind?” he asked.

“Mushroom and Porto wine,” Deidara replied in a small voice.

Leader made a content noise and turned on his heel. Before disappearing in the kitchen, he looked over his shoulder and addressed them:

“Behave yourself until everything’s ready, will you? Konan and I are almost done.”

And with that, he was gone, and Deidara slid from the wall onto the floor. He heaved a sigh of relief while Sasori let out a mocking rictus. Itachi sipped his water, and Zetsu peeked curiously under the lid of the container that Deidara had brought. Meanwhile, Kisame could only concentrate on one thing…

“Did anyone else notice that Leader had flour on his ass?” he asked, his face contorted in confusion.

“Yes,” acquiesced Itachi. “It was shaped like a hand, too.”

“Maybe his butt itched, and he needed to scratch it?” Zetsu pondered innocently.

Sasori approached them and pulled a plastic bowl out of a hidden compartment in his thigh. He opened it and set it on the table with disinterest. Zetsu frowned in a grotesque manner.

“ _Sasori, what the fuck is that?_ ”

“Zetsu-san, are you talking about his clothes, or his meal?” Kisame asked mockingly.

Sasori narrowed his eyes at him, but ultimately chose to not stab him with a poisoned needle.

“I’ll have you know, Kisame, that the sweaters were Deidara’s idea,” he said, as if it was any justification.

“It’s for the holiday spirit, yeah!” interjected the blonde.

Zetsu growled a menacing “ _Sasori…_ ”, because he was, after all, still waiting for an answer. The redhead followed his gaze to the bowl he’d brought.

“They’re hard-boiled eggs,” he replied, as if it was an obvious thing.

To Kisame, Sasori had never seemed like the stupid type. At least, until now. The idea of a potluck hadn’t sounded that great at first, but now it seemed vowed to disaster. Between Zetsu’s weed brownies and Sasori’s _eggs_ , he didn’t know if anyone else could do worse.

“Sasori-san, this has to be the worse potluck meal in history,” Kisame said, a hint of discouragement in his voice.

Of course, he should have kept his mouth shut. Because as soon as he’d finished speaking, the last two (and most chaotic) members made their entrance.

“Where the fuck is the door, huh? I thought the entrance was supposed to be a secret?” was the first thing Hidan said upon entering the room.

Strangely, the first thing that everyone else wanted to say as he entered the room was:

“Why do you have a dead goat?!” Deidara screeched, pointing at the bloody animal hanging over Hidan’s shoulder.

Hidan gave him a look that said “And why are _you_ slumped against the wall like you just almost died" but he chose to keep his mouth shut. Instead, he raised the goat in the air by its horns and smiled creepily. 

“Behold, the glorious sacrifice I made to Jashin-sama so that he would bless this meal, this day and the year to come!” he proclaimed.

Itachi frowned, much like Kisame did, while Zetsu made a disgusted grunt. Sasori merely blinked while Deidara glowered at him. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one, and Hidan was quickly whacked behind the head by his long-time partner.

“Nobody wants to hear about your dumb rituals, you stupid brat,” Kakuzu grumbled. “Get that thing on the table already and stop talking.”

Hidan bitched, but he still complied and went to dump the cadaver on the table, splattering the decorations with blood. Itachi managed to swiftly save their dinner by moving the plate just in time before a hoove lodged itself in the cheese topping.

Kakuzu’s deep, commanding voice always worked wonders on Hidan. Kisame had yet to discover his secret.

Looking satisfied with himself, Hidan announced “Tonight, we eat goat!”

“It’s not even cooked,” Kisame pointed out.

“And eating raw meat is unsanitary,” seconded Itachi. “We could fall ill.”

“I’d like to see you fall ill,” Deidara mumbled in his corner.

“So, what, you’d rather eat the gross cookies that Kakuzu’s got?”

At Hidan’s remark, Kisame noticed the plastic container that Kakuzu was holding in his hand. Deidara, who was closest to him, approached and took a look inside the container, which apparently had no lid. He arched a brow.

“Kakuzu, just what did you put in those cookies?” he inquired.

Kakuzu narrowed his zombie eyes menacingly.

“They’re just normal cookies,” he replied curtly, signaling that his cooking skills would no longer be questioned.

He deposited his container between the lasagna and the goat, in a spot where the tablecloth wasn’t stained with fresh blood. Kisame saw his partner peek at the cookies. He imitated him and stretched his neck to see as well. He finally understood what Deidara meant. Kakuzu could’ve baked cookies out of sand and they would’ve looked the same. These were the most suspiciously dry-looking cookies he’d ever seen in his life.

“Carrying food in an uncovered container is unsanitary,” Itachi pointed out.

_“Plus, they look ass-dry.”_

Hidan’s laughter shook the room like a roar. He clapped Zetsu on the shoulder.

“Ass-dry! I love this guy!”

He didn’t laugh again, however, as Kakuzu used one of his tentacle limbs to smash his head on the table, breaking a set of cutlery. This had escalated quickly.

“You brought a dead goat, so you better not bitch about my cookies.”

“You know, Hidan,” interjected Kisame. “The whole point of a potluck is to bring food that you cooked yourself…”

“Even Sasori got that, _and he brought hard-boiled eggs_ ,” Zetsu commented.

Sasori didn’t even bother with the remark. Meanwhile, Hidan looked taken aback. “Yeah…so?”

“Does a dead goat look like a homecooked meal to you?” Itachi asked, eyebrows raised.

Offensed, Hidan countered: “You’re right. I should’ve done like you and team up with my partner to bring a homecooked lasagna or some shit, like a fucking married couple!”

Deidara snickered in his corner “Married couple…”.

Kisame got up and stared Hidan down. “You wanna try repeating that?”

Itachi put down his cup.

“Calm down, Kisame. There is no need for violence. It’s New Year’s Eve, after all.”

Teeth clenched, Kisame resigned himself to look away from Hidan’s arrogant grin. Of course, the ever conflict-seeking Jashinist wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily.

“Yeah that’s right. Listen to your boyfriend like a good little-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because Kisame closed the distance between them in a flash and hit him square in the jaw. Hidan was knocked over onto the table, his ass landing in…

“MY RISOTTO!” Deidara yelled desperately. He hurriedly went over to Hidan and yanked on his legs to try and get him out of his dinner.

“Get up, you shithead!” he screeched. “I said get up! Get your fat ass out of my risotto!”

His voice became impossibly funny when he got mad. Once he’d finally managed to wrestle Hidan back to his feet, he evaluated the damage done to his precious meal.

“It’s ruined. It’s RUINED! My cooking! My art!” he complained.

“Oh, stop bitching,” said Hidan, wiping the sticky rice off his ass with the tablecloth. “It’s just a fucking risotto, it’s not even good.”

Deidara’s head snapped towards him. “What did you say?”

From the corner of his eye, Kisame saw Sasori grin and mutter “There we go again.”

Deidara’s furious face now matched the color of his Christmas sweater. He started shouting various threats at Hidan, such as “I’ll punch you unconscious!” or “I’ll make your guts explode!”. Apparently, risotto was a touchy subject for Deidara. As for Hidan, well, he was clearly unafraid of adversity, because he flashed the blonde a dangerous smile.

“Bring it on, filthy heathen. I’ll take down all of you if I have to!” he declared as he took out his scythe.

“Not if I knock you out first, stupid brat.” As he spoke, Kakuzu extended his tentacle arms.

He was, after all, always looking for an excuse to pass his anger on Hidan.

Kisame grinned. “Itachi-san, we can’t pass up on an opportunity like that. Let’s beat him up.”

Itachi sighed, but reluctantly got up. “Understood, but let’s not make too much of a mess. I wouldn’t want to ruin the decorations.”

“Danna, back me up!” Deidara called out.

Sasori looked pissed, but he summoned his puppet of the Third Kazekage anyway. “I’m only fighting because I’m tired of waiting around for Leader to arrive,” he stated.

“This sounds fun,” said Zetsu with a smile. “ _Whoever cuts off Hidan’s head gets first dibs on Konan’s salad._ ”

“You’re stupid if you think you can beat all of us,” Itachi said in his usual neutral tone.

Hidan was indeed surrounded, but he merely laughed at Itachi’s remark.

“Maybe _I_ can’t… But I’m not alone.”

It all happened rather quickly. Hidan used the table to propel himself high in the air, narrowly missing Sasori’s poisoned projectile. As he leapt, he brought his scythe behind his head, preparing for a blow. At the same time, the inevitable happened: Konan and Leader walked in. Konan took one look at them and her eyes went wide.

“No! Not in front of my salad!” she exclaimed.

She made a move towards them, but Leader took a hold of her sleeve and drew her away. He was just in time too, because everyone else realized too late what Hidan’s true aim was.

“Merry fucking Christmas!” he shouted as he cut off the chains holding the enormous chandelier to the ceiling.

And everything just kinda went downhill from there. As the chandelier fell, Deidara screamed, pushed Sasori aside and jumped on the table to protect the remains of his risotto with his own body. Zetsu could have disappeared into the floor, but he chose to use Kakuzu as a human shield instead. Kakuzu didn’t seem to notice or care, because he was currently busy arranging his tentacles around himself to absorb the impact in his place. Meanwhile, since Itachi’s sharingan had somehow allowed him to predict what was about to happen, he was comfortably holding onto the wall with his chakra…leaving Kisame to fend for himself. The blue man grunted in discontent.

His chances of avoiding the chandelier completely were slim. He wasn’t as quick as Itachi nor as agile as Deidara, who wasn’t even trying to dodge right now anyway. Kisame concentred his chakra in his feet and jumped out of the way in time to avoid being crushed to the death, but he couldn’t evade the sharp metal piece sticking out of the big thing. It scraped his leg, drawing blood.

The racket caused by the chandelier as it hit the ground was worse than he would have imagined. As it fell right down on the table, everything went flying in a clinking cacophony: the plates, the food (bloody goat included), the decorations, not to mention Deidara and his horrible Christmas sweater covered in risotto. The glass jars containing the decorative candles that Konan had so carefully crafted were crushed under the weight of the chandelier and its much, much larger candles. And of course, the tablecloth had to catch on fire in the process.

Hidan landed right next to where Leader was still holding Konan in an overprotective manner. He was smiling wildly, as if he’d just completed one of his creepy religious rituals. Leader looked at him with homicidal intent in his eyes.

“Hah! I finally get what blondie’s talking about when he gets horny for explosions!”, Hidan exclaimed, his gaze roaming over the chaos he’d created.

Blood was flowing down Kisame’s calf, but it didn’t hurt as much as it looked. Itachi landed silently beside him, totally unscathed. Zetsu had also been mostly sparred from the damage, but Kakuzu displayed a noticeable cut on his arm. Meanwhile, things weren’t as easy for Sasori, who was busy wrestling his precious puppet free from the burning pieces of broken table. From somewhere under the debris came a muffled yelp. A blazing figure rose from the carnage: it was Deidara, and his hair was on fire.

Screaming, he scrambled to his feet and ran blindly…straight into his partner. The pair tumbled down into the fire, that was getting larger by the second, and landed a few feet away into the mess that Konan’s salad had become. Struck by a sudden rush of inspiration, Deidara untangled his limbs from Sasori’s and lunged his head into the salad bowl, frantically trying to put out the flames on his head using the quinoa salad. Hidan chuckled at the sight. Sasori would’ve laughed too, if his hands and arms hadn’t just caught on fire from all the rolling around on the inflamed tablecloth. He was staring at himself confusedly, as if he’d just realized that fire didn’t do well with his puppet limbs made out of wood.

“Sasori is on fire,” Zetsu noted.

Itachi nodded. “Maybe we should help him?”

He shot his partner a glance. He was obviously referring to Kisame’s affinity with water-type jutsus. But before he had a chance to reply, a large water missile lashed at the flames and sent Deidara flying into Sasori (again). The jutsu had come from Leader, who was currently oozing anger, his fingers forming a bird seal.

He wasn’t only aiming at the fire, though, but at all of them. You could excuse him by saying that he was only trying to extinguish the flames as fast as possible, but this was Leader. Nobody tried to avoid his punishing lashes as he hit them with water. It was cold and violent, and when it finally stopped, Kisame saw that apart from Konan, only one other person had been sparred from his wrath: Hidan.

“You’re no fun, Leader,” Hidan complained. “It was just starting to become a party.”

And then he turned his head towards Leader. And then he saw his expression. Suddenly, his pout faded. He gulped.

“Hidan…” Leader articulated slowly.

Even from the opposite side of the room, Kisame could see sweat running down Hidan’s forehead. Leader directed both his palms towards him and waited for a few seconds, as if daring him to try and stop him. Hidan didn’t. He was, of course, not allowed to dodge either.

“Know pain,” Leader declared before he Shinra Tenseid the hell out of Hidan.

Hidan had the air knocked out of him and was projected into the opposite wall. He spit out blood in a painful “oof!” as he crashed loudly into the wall, his body carving large circles into the rock around him. The whole room shook with the force of the impact. The following silence was only disrupted by the sounds of crumbling rock…until Hidan found his breath again.

“Fuuuckkk…” he whined.

A dark red stain was starting to show through his cape. Hidan was lucky he was immortal, because otherwise he would be dead by now. Kisame wondered if it was his immortality that pushed him to do stupid shit all the time.

Zetsu had sunken into the floor and emerged next to Hidan. “That looked painful,” he observed.

“Yeah, no shit.”

Kisame looked at Konan. She was staring at the soggy remains of her food in disarray. On the walls, the decorations hung sad and wet, one half trailing to the ground. And there was nothing left of her origami centerpiece ; it had been the first thing to go up in flames after Deidara’s hair. Said Deidara was now actively pestering Sasori, asking him how bad his hair looked right now.

“I don’t know, brat. It looks just as bad as ever.”

“Oh fuck you, danna,” the blonde spit out, feeling out the burned end of his ponytail with his fingers.

Kakuzu passed them, striding over the burnt clutter. He rummaged around the debris for a while until he withdrew a container covered in soot. Kisame watched him blow on it and lift the lid.

“Good,” he grunted through his scarf. “My cookies are intact. That means I can still sell them.”

Kisame rolled his eyes and thought that there might even exist someone more hopeless than Hidan.

Itachi nudged him in the elbow. “I think it would be better for us to leave.”

He was looking in Konan’s direction. Kisame followed his gaze and saw that Konan was now shaking with anger, her jaw set and her eyes dark. He could understand Itachi: his instincts were telling him to get the hell out of here as well.

Konan’s order came out in dry cut syllables. “Out. All of you. Now.”

Her tone clearly indicated that the matter wasn’t to be discussed with. Only Deidara was stupid enough to mutter plaintively “But the holiday potluck…”.

No sooner had he spoken the last word that Konan shot a sharp paper arrow at his face. He ducked at the last minute with a yelp.

“ _Now,_ ” she hissed.

The merry and warm Konan from before was nowhere to be seen now. She looked ready to murder them all in cold blood…and she probably was, Kisame realized. Deidara was the first to scatter to his feet and make his way to the door, Sasori trailing behind him. The both left wet footprints in their wake. Zetsu melted into the ground after wishing them all a happy New Year. Kisame also happened to catc a glimpse of a plastic container in his arms, and he assumed that would have to be what was left of his cursed brownies.

“Come on, Hidan.” Kakuzu didn’t bother saying goodbye, nor did he wait to see if his partner was actually following him.

“Hey, Kakuzu! Wait for me, for fuck’s sake!”

Hidan got to his feet as if he hadn’t been thrown into the wall by the most powerful member of the Akatsuki two minutes ago. He jogged to catch up to Kakuzu, all the while ignoring the (profusely bleeding) wound in his chest. As he passed Kisame and Itachi, he shot them a vicious grin.

“This isn’t over, shark boy,” he announced in his loud, annoying voice. “I’ll get you for punching me, I swear!”

“Looking forward to it…,” he replied at his back.

Kisame made a mental note to beat him good for calling him “shark boy”.

“We will take our leave as well,” Itachi addressed the only pair left in the room.

Konan acknowledged them with a nod, but she didn’t look at them. Kisame felt compelled to say something to her, because strangely, he _felt bad._ And empathy wasn’t usually on his top feelings list.

“Sorry it turned out like this, Konan-san.”

When Konan didn’t react, he guessed it would be best to leave it at that. Also, Leader was glaring at him threateningly.

Taking the silence as his cue to leave, Itachi turned on his heel and Kisame imitated him, although he was slightly limping. His leg hurt more when he walked on it, he discovered.

The walked down the corridor, leaving behind their leader and Konan. The smoke smell started to vanish as soon as they reached what was previously the secret entrance. Now, thanks to Deidara, it was just a gaping hole that lead outside. Kisame found that he breathed easier once they were out.

It was dark by now, and the moon reflected its light onto the frozen lake under their eyes. It was dead silent, and the members who had exited before them were nowhere to be seen.

“Well, so much for the nice holiday potluck,” Itachi sighed. “And we went all the way to cook a nice lasagna.”

Kisame was examining his calf under the moonlight. Now that he took a closer look, it looked pretty deep.

“Is that gonna be okay?” Itachi inquired, his eyes trailing down his leg.

Kisame chuckled softly. “Well, my leg has seen better days, but it’ll heal, I reckon.”

They started walking, slowly because of Kisame’s limp. But it was okay, there was no rush. They had all the time in the world. Or at least he wished they did.

Kisame tried to fill the silence to forget about the pain in his leg.

“That was…not what I expected.”

“Really? I found it to be pretty close to what I’d imagined,” Itachi admitted.

His partner gave him a sidelong look.

“Seriously? So you predicted that Hidan would challenge all of us to a duel and destroy everything, ultimately causing a torn piece of chandelier to stab me in the leg?”

Itachi reflected on this in silence. Finally, he shrugged.

“Maybe not to such an extent, but I expected that we would never actually get to eat anything. Which is why I took…this.”

From under his cloak, he took out a familiar rectangular glass container.

“Our lasagna,” Kisame realized.

“I was able to save it before the chandelier fell,” he told him. “It would be a waste to not eat it after we made it.”

Kisame acquiesced happily. Itachi looked up to him with a glint in his eyes and rose on his cheeks. Kisame could’ve sworn that he was smiling.

“Let’s have our own New Year’s eve dinner, Kisame. Just the two of us.”

Later, Kisame would try to convince himself that he’d imagined the warmth in his chest, or the quickening of his heartbeat, or the smile that he couldn’t keep off his lips as he replied:

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> I might actually write an epilogue about Konan and Pain, because I just feel too bad for them.  
> I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it! Comments and kudos are welcome as well^^


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